Museum's bugs are edible, super-sized, even motorized

Sunday

Jun 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMJun 29, 2008 at 11:22 AM

NEW ORLEANS -- Ron Forman wants to change grown-ups' views of bugs and spiders from "Ewww!" to "Cool!" After all, such critters clean the earth, pollinate plants and form a huge chunk of the food chain.

NEW ORLEANS -- Ron Forman wants to change grown-ups' views of bugs and spiders from "Ewww!" to "Cool!" After all, such critters clean the earth, pollinate plants and form a huge chunk of the food chain.

"Without insects, nature doesn't exist," said Forman, chief executive of the new Audubon Insectarium, the first major tourist attraction to open in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina.

The facility, built with $6.2 million in private donations and $20 million in public money, is one of only a few stand-alone nonprofit insectariums.

In New Orleans, displays include spiders, centipedes and crawfish as well as ants, mosquitoes and other six-leggers.

Nitpickers might say that means it isn't an insectarium; arthropodarium might be appropriate.

Whatever it's called, thousands of live and mounted bugs went on display when the Insectarium opened June 13 in 23,000 square feet of the old U.S. Custom House near the French Quarter.

Some creatures, such as the butterflies stretching crumpled wings in the metamorphosis room and fluttering about the Japanese-style butterfly garden, are short-lived. The butterfly population is kept up by purchasing about 700 a week in chrysalis form, the stage between caterpillar and adult.

Chief entomologist Jayme Necaise estimates that the insectarium holds 35,000 live residents, with another 15,000 mounted, but he emphasizes there is no way to get a head count on the colonies of ants and termites.

Hurricane Katrina delayed plans for opening the insectarium when it flooded 80 percent of New Orleans in August 2005, although the Custom House stayed dry.

The insectarium was expected to open last summer, but the federal government didn't allow workers back into the building until later.

The Custom House's historic status -- construction started in 1849 -- challenged builders and designers. Nothing could be permanently installed, Audubon spokeswoman Melissa Lee said. Backdrops are painted and sculpted on tall wooden walls within the high-ceilinged rooms and corridors. The institute needed federal permission to disguise a fat load-bearing column in one room as a cypress tree.

The tall, wide doors are untouched, so people can see where horse-drawn carriages once hauled imports and exports for inspection by customs agents, Lee said.

The rest is a mix of science and whimsy. A wide entry room where visitors can wait and buy tickets opens into the carriageway and an exhibit about prehistoric bugs.

Models of dragonflies with 30-inch wingspans move on overhead tracks.

"They really were that big," Lee said.

In a case, a less-than-life-size model of coelophysis -- a sharp-toothed raptor that grew up to 9 feet high -- chases a fist-sized model of a dragonfly.

Off the carriageway is a tunnel designed to provide a bug's-eye view underground. An earthworm about 18 inches across loops through one bit; mites are the size of plums.

Outside the bathrooms, dung beetles roll balls of waste in an exhibit framed by a yard-high imitation of such a ball. Entomologist Zachary Lemann leaned over in wonder at the bugs.

"Look at them. They're so cute! So cuuuuute!"

Lemann doesn't just coo over bugs; he cooks them, working with Insectarium chef Alan Ehrich in the display kitchen, where photos include a huge picture of a Thai child happily eating spiders on a stick.

Some exhibits are themed, including "Termites" (for which the exterminator Terminix has pledged $2 million in funding); "Louisiana Swamp Success Stories," which includes a machine to test whether you can pedal as fast as a cricket can hop; and a Hall of Fame featuring the biggest, smallest, fastest and so on.

There's also an "Insect Awards Night" theater, where the seats shake as a cartoon Goliath beetle stomps across the stage. A stink bug's squirt is accompanied by a puff of air.

The Montreal Insectarium, used as the model for the New Orleans museum, gets 400,000 visitors a year. Audubon officials expect about 350,000 a year in New Orleans.

"I'm going to have to go there," said Katharine Edler, 23, who tends bar nearby in the French Quarter. "And I don't even like bugs!"